


No wonder, no wonder

by regshoe



Category: English and Scottish Popular Ballads - Francis James Child, Willie o Winsbury (Traditional Ballad)
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21619846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regshoe/pseuds/regshoe
Summary: Like father, like daughter.
Relationships: The King (Willie o Winsbury)/Original Male Character
Comments: 18
Kudos: 29
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	No wonder, no wonder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cadenzamuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadenzamuse/gifts).



> I love this ballad and especially the verses you highlighted in your letter, and it was great fun exploring why the king might have made the choice he does—I hope you enjoy my take on it!
> 
> Thanks to angelsaves for beta reading.

_'The king has called his serving men, by one, by two and by three...'_

They stood along the walls of the great hall, some in neat lines, others gathered together in little groups. Their fine clothes, as bright and as varied as the plumages of a flock of finches, suggested an occasion far more cheerful than the one for which they were really assembled. The expressions of their faces ranged from carefully polished courtier's neutrality to undisguised dread. None of them spoke. Once the last echoes of their footsteps on the stone flags of the floor had died away, the hall was perfectly silent from the high wooden doors to the dais on which stood the throne.

And so they awaited the king's judgement. Though, in truth, they had little doubt what the substance of it would be. The incidents of song, tale and history were, after all, very clear as to how a king and father in such a situation must act; and more than one of those gathered there thought of the name of Lady Diamond.

The king surveyed them from his place on the dais, high above them all, his manner reflecting their silence and solemnity back towards them. His gaze lingered on only two faces amongst the many. Jane—his precious Jane—stood to one side before the throne, pale but steadfast. One hand rested on her round belly, the other gripped the hand of her lover. She had gone over to his side as soon as he had appeared, and stood there still, watching her father, meeting his eyes—no matter how terrible his gaze must be to her. She was undaunted. Oh, but she was always brave...

_His life had been that of the perfect spoilt young prince, happy and carefree: he had chased the deer in the forest, won honour and renown in every contest and game, feasted each night at the table with his assembled noblemen. And there had been no great changes, as yet, as there were to be later: he was still the crown prince, he still rode and fought and feasted. But now he had a daughter, and far from neglecting her, as some of his erstwhile companions had held that he might, he treasured her—yet at the same time he was not quite sure what to make of this new element in his life. He and her mother had been happy together for a while, but she had died of a fever while Jane was still in her cradle, and they were left alone; he had to be both father and mother to her._

_One day he crept out of the hall where his father was holding council with his knights and went up to Jane's nursery, thinking to please her with a surprise visit. From behind the old oak door, as he approached it, there came the sound of a voice raised in scolding anger—the voice of Jane's nurse, a dear old woman who had taken care of him in his own childhood days, but who could be harsh enough when her charges' behaviour called for it. The door was ajar, and he positioned himself behind it to listen._

_'Stealing food from the kitchen!' the nurse was saying. 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself. It's a sin and a crime to steal, as you know quite well.'_

_From where he stood he could see Jane, though she had not yet seen him. She did not cry or hang her head in shame, as some children would have done, and she did not try to make excuses for herself; she simply stared straight at her nurse with shoulders back and head held up, a picture of proud defiance._

_Later, after Jane had been sent to bed without her supper, the old woman said to him, 'Silly child! Do you know, she looked just like you used to, when you were a lad and I caught you misbehaving.'_

_And so he understood; and, for all her disobedience, he was proud of his daughter. He said nothing to her, of course, for it would not do to reward waywardness; but he thought about it for many a day after that scene in the nursery, and watched her at her play, and remembered that they were alike, after all._

The other figure who held the king's attention as he looked round the hall stood in peril, but as steadfast as his lady. It became him so very well. He was a tall, fine-looking young man: his thick golden hair hung in shining strands down over his shoulders, and he wore a scarlet robe rather carelessly arranged, so that a narrow strip of white skin was visible beneath his collarbone, between the folds of red cloth.

He did not meet the king's gaze as Jane did, but kept his eyes cast respectfully, or perhaps only fearfully, to the ground. Indeed, it was difficult to guess just what his mood was: the fine features, strong mouth and deep brown eyes were all kept carefully blank. Only when, as he did now, he cast a quick glance towards Jane was something of his heart revealed, for his expression changed utterly in those few short moments. So did hers.

Their emotion brought another memory, unbidden, to the king's mind. The young man looked every bit as handsome as John had, all those years ago.

_He found, when at last his time came to ascend it, that the throne was an unutterably, appallingly lonely place. There he sat, on the raised stone platform at the top of the great hall, making judgements and issuing orders as his father had done before him; always hoping that he was judging and ordering rightly, but never feeling the effortless certainty his father had always seemed to have. (But perhaps he had no such thing; perhaps that had been only another perfectly maintained act, as so much of the conduct of a king was). After all, who would gainsay him if he spoke wrongly? He thought with dread of the king in the song, who had sent a good sailor and a ship full of noble men to their deaths because no one could tell him his orders were not wise._

_It was some relief that not every moment was so haunted: the old pleasures and diversions still had their place. When he had been on the throne a year or two, he held a great tournament, to which all the gallant young noblemen in the land were summoned, and it was here that he first saw John._

_He was the son of a laird from Galloway, who had been a friend of the old king; he was just as gracious, courteous and handsome as the victor of such a grand tournament ought to be. The first time the king saw him he was practising for the fight, tilting at a straw figure in the yard, and his bright hair was tied back in a long braid to keep it out of his face; that evening, when he sat at table and flashed sparkling smiles to all who spoke to him, it was combed down over his shoulders in golden waves. As he rode over the field the next day, facing one enemy after another with the same easy confidence, the king cast barely a glance at anyone else. When his attention was not engaged by his opponent, John's eyes looked up to where the king sat almost as often._

_'You do me great honour, sire,' he said afterwards, with a little bow and rather a different sort of smile._

_Young John won fame and renown in those fights, but these were not the most precious to him of the things he won. Before he returned to Galloway, those golden hairs lay on the king's pillow._

_'I could bide no longer alone...'_

Even now, there was not a murmur among the assembled serving-men; they stood and waited for their king to speak, just as they had in those early days. Somewhere far above them, the sun came out from behind a cloud, and the rays of light filtered down over their heads from the high windows. The fine wall-hangings behind them, dull and grey until that moment, shone in the sudden light. The hall was, in spite of the horrible scene playing out in it, a beautiful place. 

_His time as a captive in Spain—the result of a foolish misjudgement which he had plenty of time to regret, and which he was only grateful had done harm to himself alone—was no great hardship for the king; or at least it need not have been one. He was treated just as a noble prisoner ought to be: he had comfortable rooms and good food, and the Spanish lords were kind to him if in a rather distant, disinterested way. But still he had not his freedom, and under that loss he could not be content._

_He would spend long hours out on the terraces of the Spanish castle, where the guards watched him with suspicious eyes, searching for any sign that he might be about to attempt an escape. But he only stood and gazed out at the blue southern sky and the dusty brown hillside falling away below him, speckled with thorn-bushes, and thought with longing of the cold air and grey clouds that had been above his head in Dunfermline._

_Jane was far from him, and he could not go to her, or even write to her. She was left without a parent's guidance at a perilous and vital time in a young woman's life, and he worried about her. He ought to have been teaching her the craft of a ruler, giving her the knowledge and wisdom she would need one day when she had lands of her own to manage and rule over; he ought to have been looking out for a suitable husband for her, who could give her the lands and the riches that she deserved. Instead, she was alone. And she was not the only one lost to him: he did not see his darling John for many a long year._

_It was with all these shadows still on him that he came back at last to Scotland. Under such a burden as this it was easy for him, when he discovered what Jane had done in his absence and returned all at once to his place as king and father, to remember first all of those stories and songs that told how he should act. There could be no doubt or uncertainty under the weight of them._

_Yes, it was all too easy to remember what a righteous king and father ought to be, and to forget what he was. He began by thinking he must do the same as those other cruel fathers, and ended by thinking that it was not possible for him to do anything else._

But Jane was still watching him with that quiet, steadfast gaze. She looked almost as though she, alone amongst the assembled crowd, believed that he would not do as he had meant to. And so he remembered that he was her mother as well as her father, and had once looked with a mother's indulgence and understanding on her waywardness; and he remembered that her woman's weakness had once been his own. They were both all the stronger for it now.

_'No wonder, no wonder,' the king he said..._

**Author's Note:**

> 'Lady Diamond' is another ballad (Child 269), which begins the same way as this one, but ends with the king having his daughter's lover killed. Some of the verses are similar enough that it feels like 'Willie o Winsbury' is deliberately playing on/subverting the more conventional plot of 'Lady Diamond'.
> 
> The 'king in the song' is the one from 'Sir Patrick Spens' (Child 58), who makes a completely different sort of bad decision.
> 
> The spelling of the ballad title and Willie's name varies, so I've picked one common version to go with. The quoted lyrics are from Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer's version.


End file.
